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Rejoice in This Place!

Community invited to annual holiday concert Dec. 15

The Rensselaer community is invited to come together with local residents for the Institute’s annual holiday concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 15. This year’s performance, which will be led by Institute conductor Nicholas DeMaison, is an invitation for people in the campus community and the greater Capital Region community to “Rejoice in This Place!” The concert will be a celebration of Rensselaer and its world-class performance venue, the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC).

The Rensselaer Orchestra and Concert Choir will be joined by professional musicians for the concert at EMPAC. The holiday concert will be led by new Institute conductor Nicholas DeMaison, an acclaimed conductor and composer who joined Rensselaer this fall.

“The annual tradition of the holiday concert is a wonderful opportunity for members of the campus community to come together with the local community for a musical celebration. This year’s performance promises to be particularly special as it is led by our new conductor and will feature both student and professional musicians performing side-by-side in the unparalleled setting of EMPAC,” said Mary Simoni, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.

The 90-minute concert is free and open to the public; tickets are not required and seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Attendees are asked to register online at rpi.edu/about/holiday. There will be a brief intermission between the first and second acts.

The Rensselaer Orchestra and Rensselaer Concert Choir will be joined by professional musicians for this year’s event, which is inspired by EMPAC and features songs and dances celebrating ecstatic, joyful places.

Among the selections performed by the Rensselaer Concert Choir will be Anton Bruckner’s “Locus iste.” Professional musicians will join the Rensselaer Orchestra to perform Gustav Mahler’s “Das himmlische Leben (A Child’s View of Heaven)” from the 1805 collection of German folk songs known as “Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn).”

In the second half of the performance, both the Rensselaer Orchestra and Concert Choir, as well as the professional musicians, will assemble to present Claudio Monteverdi’s “Ecco mormorar l’onde.” The centerpiece of the concert will be Haydn’s “Te Deum for Maria Theresa.” The concert will close with Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” from “The Messiah.”